Tue Aug 26, 2008 at 17:53

I do not think it is going to far to say the election may be decided in the next two nights. As I have written here before, it is more common for races to be decided in the summer than in the fall. As of this moment, tracking poll information indicates that Obama has not received a bounce from either the first night of the Convention or from the Biden announcement. As I noted here previously, even Kerry got a bounce out of naming Edwards. In '96 Dole got a significant bounce from naming Kemp (and from the first two nights of the convention), and both Bush and Gore in 2000 saw some movement after naming their running mates (data on the flip).

The reason for the lack of a bounce thus far is obvious: everyone is waiting for Hillary and Bill. Right now the overwhelming media narrative of this convention is of a party that is badly split.

This may be counter-intuitive, and you can dismiss it as wishful thinking, but the very lack of a bounce to date to me suggests the opportunity at hand. What television hungers for is drama. When Bill and Hillary speak tonight and tomorrow the drama will be very real. And that is why what they say will be of critical importance.

A generation ago Ted Kennedy spoke to the Democratic Convention and delivered the one of the most moving speeches I have ever seen. The situation was not unlike the present (people keep drawing the wrong analogies to 1980) - the Democratic Party was so badly split in 1980 that Carter was actually below 50% among Democrats in one summer poll. Kennedy was hardly conciliatory to Carter in that speech. But it WAS effective, and it did help Carter temporarily put the Democratic Party back together.

You can argue that for Clinton the task is somewhat different tonight: surely she must put to rest the sense that her support for Obama is simply for show. On another level, though, her task is to show how HER causes would be destroyed by a McCain Presidency. When Kennedy spoke in 1980 he barely mentioned Carter. But he made to sure to attack Reagan.

If she makes this case effectively, and Bill re-enforces it tomorrow night, the election may be substantially decided. If they do not, we can expect a very close and hard fought election.

In past cycles there is usually at least one spot poll that tests the horse race the day after the nominee names his running mate. Opinion Research polled for CNN and found a dead even race, suggesting little movement for Obama. Rasmussen and Gallup also appear to have found little movement to Obama.

Some past snap polls:

In 2004 NBC took a poll the day Edwards was named showed Kerry up 8, a significant increase from polling taken the week prior.
Two subsequent polls showed less movement: Zogby and Time showed Kerry up 2 in polls taken the two days after Kerry was named.

In 2000 Gallup polled the day of Cheney's announcement and found Bush leading by 4, a two point increase from a week earlier (though Bush went from 45 to 49). Polling taken in the two days after Cheney's announcement showed significant movement in two polls: Bush lead by 9 in a Fox Poll and by 14 in a CNN poll, both taken 2 days after the announcement, though Newsweek and NBC found only a five point lead for Bush in the same period.

The snap poll for Lieberman's announcement suggested significant movement: Gallup found
Gore down only one. The previous Gallup poll taken a week earlier had Gore down 16. As noted in this post, however, the 2000 Gallup polling should be generally disregarded - it was terrible. In fact a week later Gallup found Bush leading by 13. Most of the other polling on Lieberman didn't get completed until 3 days after he was named.

In 1996 Dole named Kemp the day before the convention, and went from down 22 to down 12.
That race was completely different from this one, and I would not expect to find something similar.

Here is a summary of the bounces that candidates have received from naming their running mates:

Except that I don't think you can say there was no bounce from yesterday since most of the interviews will have been conducted before the convention even started. Hopefully today will have been better when reported tomorrow thanks to Michelle last night.

Hillary needs to go after McCain. HARD. She needs to destroy him -- say things like "he has the most misogynistic voting record in the Senate".

That way, Obama can sell himself, while Hillary (and others) can bloody up McSame for him. It's pretty revolting, and it speaks to the inept leadership of the Democratic Party, that this hasn't happened already.

What's the downside for her if she takes an aggressive anti-McCain stance? Well, the media won't be very nice to her. Imagine that.

If tonight is simply a kumbaya speech, we're dead.

We'll see tonight how badly Hillary wants a Democrat in the White House.

"We judge ourselves by our ideals; others by their actions. It is a great convenience." -- Howard Zinn

She has the opportunity to take a great deal of power for herself in that Obama will owe her big time. She could cause some damage down the line if he doesn't play ball. Not ideal but frankly he really MUST win so we will just have to deal with it later.

Right or not, if Obama supporters feel her hypothetical luke warm support costs Obama the election, we will have a similiar situation in 2012, with former Obama supporters withholding support.... or costing her the nom by backing someone like Warner.

On the flip, if Obama supporters see her working as hard as possible, they will be more apt to return the favor in 2016 (or 2012 if the GOP steals the election).

With Mark Warner talking bipartisanship and praising the Republicans in his keynote speech, it looks like Hillary's speech is our only chance for a high-profile attack on McCain tonight. Let's hope she delivers.

it is so important for her to go after McCain is because it is the best chance she has of appearing authentic. If she gives a speech full of "my friend Barak Obama" lines it will come across as forced and unbelievable.

I think you are unquestionably correct about the importance of the next two nights. I am not sure that the Clintons have the ability to put it away, but they clearly can cause it to be a closer harder fought election over the fall.

I am also not surprised that Biden did not cause more of a bump. The campaign built up all of this suspense and drama, and then gave the predictable front-runner pick. It just did not meet with the expectations that the campaign created. Now don't get me wrong, I really like Biden for a lot of reasons and think that substantively he is a solid pick. However, the Obama created a mystic that no one except perhaps Clinton or Gore could meet. In a way, Biden was like opening a pair of socks on Christmas morning. Sure, you know you need them, but they are not what you had imagined a day before.

I would not put this all on Obama -- the scheduling was difficult with the Olympics and the perception of wanting to extend the McCain house mini-scandal for an extra news cycle. However, Biden could have been named a week or even two earlier, and the campaign would not have suffered.

In the end, though, I think Hillary will do what she needs to do. I am a bit concerned about Bill.

probably occurred yesterday during the day, which makes it too early to determine whether or not the first night of the convention produced a bounce.

I'd imagine both Ras and Gallup are in the field now polling, which means tomorrow's results will be the ones to look for a bounce in. And since Gallup has a rolling three day average, the effect might not even be as pronounced.

I do hope Hillary goes out there and talks about how the best way to honor her historic candidacy would be to elect a Democratic President so that she can work for universal health care in the Senate. She needs to go on the attack tonight, and I hope she's up to the task.

How can you measure a convention bounce the day after. Michelle's speech was the broadcast that most people saw and was on late after most phone polling. Any bounce from Day 1 would not be seen until Wednesday. Lets just wait and see what happens. But yes, Hillary could go a long way to make things easier or harder and the summation of the Roll call will be huge in PR.

2. These speeches at the convention are just one bowl of mush after another. One more do gooder speech after another on how Democrats can make the world better.
WE NEED TO CONSTANTLY TRASH JOHN MCCAIN and its not happening.

Tonight only Strickland and Schweiter and Hillary herself slammed John McCain

And I am frankly just sick and tired of putting the onus of bringing in the voters and uniting this party on Hillary Clinton. She has done and said more than anyone ever has done.....Kennedy fought till the convention and Brown and Jackson did not endorse the nominee or make a speech telling people to vote for the nominee at the convention

WINNING THIS ELECTION IS THE RESPONSIBILITY OF BARACK OBAMA AND HIS CAMPAIGN..He has to say and do things to WOO those voters and he isn;t doing that. He is acting under the assumption they will all come back becasue they have no where to go. Yet he woos Republicans, independents, evangelicals and other groups in the non Democratic coaltion. But he disdains wooing the 25% of Clinton supporters who say they moght not vote for him.

Pheh!!!! To win the voters over (HIllary
Clinton can't just order them to voted for Obama...frankly the voters themselves are angry at being taken for granted) the Obama campaign and he himself has to talk to them the way she won them over. People voted for Obama because he talked about transforming policitics, but she talked about transforming their lives...she did it clearly and passionately. He has to do the same. It is the economy and it is his job to talk to them in a language they understand....making their lives better is concrete...changing the political process is ephemeral.

He is the nominee,...he should do this job and not just expect and demand that Hillary and Bill Clinton do it for him.

"Incrementalism isn't a different path to the same place, it could be a different path to a different place"
Stoller